Pinkerton, it is well known, is the great and unscrupulous upholder of the Gothic origin of the Picts; while the Gaelic theory has for its supporters such writers, of undoubted ability and acuteness, as Skene, E. W. Robertson, Forbes-Leslie, &c. Burton[72] is of opinion that the Highlanders of the present day are the true representatives of the Dalriadic Scots of the West.
We shall, as we have done in the case of the other side, allow the upholders of the Gaelic hypothesis to state for themselves the Gaelic topographical argument. We shall use the words of Colonel Forbes-Leslie, who, in his invaluable work on the “Early Races of Scotland,”[73] says, “The Celtic words Inver and Aber have nearly the same meaning; and the relative position in which they occur in names of places has been employed as if it were a sufficient argument for defining the presence or preponderance of the British or Gaelic Celts in certain districts. In this way Aber, prefixed to names of places, has been urged as adequate proof that the Picts of Caledonia were Celts of the British branch. The value of these and some other words requires examination. Inver is to be found in names of places in Wales. It may possibly be a British word. It certainly is a Gaelic one. Aber, although undoubtedly British, is also Gaelic—compounded of the two words Ath and Bior—and signifying the same as Inver, viz., the confluence of two streams, or the entrance to a river. If the word Aber had been unknown to the Gaelic scholars of modern days, its former existence in that language might have been presumed from the ancient names of places in the districts of Caledonia, where it occurs most frequently, being generally Gaelic and not British.
“Beyond the limits of Caledonia on the south of the Forth and Clyde, but within the boundary of modern Scotland, the word Inver, generally pronounced Inner, is of common occurrence, and bears witness to a Gaelic nomenclature. Thus, Inner or Inverkip, in the county of Renfrew; Innerwell, in the county of Wigton; Innerwick, in the county of Haddington; Innerleithen, in the county of Peebles; Inverleith and Inveresk, in the county of Edinburgh, derive their names from their situation in regard to the rivers Kip, Leithen, Esk, &c. &c.
“From the Moray Frith to the Forth, in the eastern counties of Caledonia, the prefix Inver or Aber is used indiscriminately in contiguous places. At the confluence of lesser streams with the river Dee, in Aberdeenshire, we find Inverey, Abergeldie, Invercauld, Invercanny, Aberdeen. Yet in those counties—viz., Aberdeen, Kincardine, Forfar, Perth, and Fife, in which were situated the capitals, and which were the richest provinces of the southern Picts—the number of names of places beginning with Inver is three times as numerous as those commencing with Aber; there being, in a list taken from land-registers, which do not go farther back than the middle of the sixteenth century, seventy-eight with Inver to twenty-four with Aber. It may, however, be admitted that, although Aber is Gaelic, its use is far more general by Celts of the British tribes; and that the predominance of Inver in the districts north of the Spey, and the intermixture of places the names of which commence with Inver or Aber, not unfrequently used in records of nearly the same date for the same place in the country lying between the Moray and the Solway Friths, is, to a certain extent, evidence of a British element of population extending into Caledonia. The Britons, in earlier times, may have been pressing on to the north by gradual intrusion, and were probably afterwards increased by bodies of exiles escaping from the severity of Roman bondage and the punishment of unsuccessful revolt.
“That names of places containing the words Bal, from Bail, a place or residence, and Ard, a height or rising ground, are so common in Ireland, and comparatively rare, so it is alleged, in Caledonia, has also been used as an argument to prove that the language of the Picts and other Caledonians of the southern and eastern districts was British, not Gaelic. But the foundation of the argument has been assumed, and is easily disproved. It is true that of large towns and places that appear in gazeteers, names commencing with Bal and Ard are not numerous. But in fact such names are extremely common. In the lowlands of Aberdeenshire—that is, in the portion of one county, and in the part of Caledonia farthest removed from the settlements of the intrusive Gaels, viz., the Scots from Ireland—registers of land show upwards of fifty places the names of which commence with Bal, and forty which commence with Ard. In the Pictish territory, from the Moray Frith to the Forth, I soon collected upwards of four hundred names of places beginning with Bal, and upwards of one hundred with Ard; and the number might easily be doubled.”
Mr. E. W. Robertson, one of the latest and ablest upholders of this theory, thinks[74] there is scarcely sufficient evidence to justify any very decided conclusion as to the pre-existence of a Cymric population; and that, whilst it would be unquestionably erroneous to ascribe a Cymric origin to the Picts, the existence of a Celtic element akin to the Cymri, amongst the population of Alban before the arrival of the Gwyddel Ffichti, must remain to a certain extent an open question.
Of all a priori theories that have hitherto been advanced as to how Scotland was likely to have been at first peopled, that of Father Innes, the first writer who investigated the subject thoroughly and critically, appears to us to be the most plausible and natural, although even it is beset with many difficulties. It appears to him more natural and probable that the Caledonian Britons, or Picts, were of the same origin as the Britons of the south; that as these came in originally from the nearest coast of Gaul, as they multiplied in the island, they advanced to the north and settled there, carrying with them the customs and language of the South Britons.[75]
We have thus endeavoured to lay before the reader, as fully as space permits, and as clearly and unprejudicedly as possible, the materials at present existing by means of which to form an opinion on the Pictish question, and the arguments pro and con, mainly in their own words, urged by the partisans of the different theories. It appears to us that the data within reach are far too scanty to justify any one in coming to a settled conclusion, and that we must wait for more light before we can be justified in finally making up our minds on this perplexing subject.[76]
At the present day we find that nearly the whole of the territory said to have been originally occupied by the Picts, is inhabited, and has been for centuries, by a population which in appearance is far more Teutonic than Celtic, and which undoubtedly speaks a broad Teutonic dialect.[77] And even in the district where the Gaelic language has been triumphant for ages, it is acknowledged even by the most devoted partisans of the Gaelic theory, that among the population there is a very considerable intermixture of the Teutonic element. Burton thinks, from a general view of the whole question, that the proportion of the Teutonic race that came into the use of the Gaelic, was much greater than the proportion of the Gaelic that came into the use of the Teutonic or Saxon, and that this may account for the contrasts of physical appearance to be seen in the Highlands.
We certainly have not exhausted the statement of the question, have not stated fully and completely all the points in dispute; nor do we pretend to have given with fulness all the arguments pro and con on the various sides. We have, however, given as much as will enable any ordinary reader to form for himself a fair idea of the present state of the Pictish question, and indicated the sources whence more information may be derived, should any one wish to pursue the subject farther. In the words of the latest and greatest Scottish historian “this brief survey of the great Pictish controversy leaves nothing but a melancholy record of wasted labour and defeated ambition. It has been more fruitless than a polemical or a political dispute, for these leave behind them, either for good or evil, their marks upon the conduct and character of the populations among whom they have raged; while here a vast outlay of learning, ingenuity, enthusiasm, and, it must be added, temper, have left no visible monument but a pile of forbidding volumes, in which should any one who has not studied the matter fundamentally expect to find instructive information, he will assuredly be led into a tangled maze of unintelligible pedantry, from which he will come forth with no impression but a nightmare feeling of hopeless struggle with difficulties.”[78]